Right As Rickey

Twenty-eight members of the BBWAA did not vote for Rickey Henderson in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

Cosmically, this is irrelevant. Rickey (one of the few players afforded the singular honor of needing only his first name for identification) breezed into the Hall with 94.5% of the vote, one of the highest totals ever. Only 75% is required for induction, so some months hence, on a sunny day in the small town of Cooperstown, Rickey will make a heavily-anticipated* speech and take his place amongst baseball’s immortals. It’s no skin off his back.

*Rickey is what is commonly referred to as a “character”. He has a habit of referring to himself in the third person, and although this may be exaggerated, it’s become a defining part of his image. Before games, Rickey would stand in front of a full-length mirror, completely naked, and shout “Rickey’s the best! Rickey’s the best!” over and over again. He framed the first million-dollar check he ever received, without cashing it. Late in his career, searching for a team that would give him another shot, Rickey called up Padres GM Kevin Towers and left this message: “This is Rickey, calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play ball”.

Where it matters intellectually is as such: Rickey Henderson is, conservatively, one of the top 25 players in baseball history. He is so far above the standard of the Hall of Fame that it’s almost silly; you would do better to create a separate wing for players of Rickey’s caliber than to vote against him. To wit: Rickey has stolen 1406 bases in his career. The second-highest guy has 938. He’s first in runs scored, first in unintentional walks, won and excelled in two World Series, won an MVP award, broke a million and one smaller records, and (I’m convinced of this, and it may warrant a separate post), turned otherwise-unremarkable sluggers into mini-superstars. Rickey went beyond Great—he was Exceptional and Unique.

Twenty-eight writers looked at that sterling resume, scratched their heads, and thought “Naaaah—just don’t see it”

And that’s a problem.

Sure, it’s not a problem on the level of War or Famine or even Fall Out Boy, but it’s still a problem. So let’s look at the ballots.

According to several online sources, at least two writers did not submit any names on their ballots. This is due to a policy of not voting for any players who played during the so-called “Steroid Era”, roughly the mid-90s to mid-00s. So those guys probably thought Rickey was good enough to merit induction, but were making a political statement about baseball in general (Rickey is considered to be above steroid suspicion, as he never blew up like a balloon or developed severe backne).

One writer, Corky Simpson of the Green Valley News & Sun, simply left Rickey off his ballot without explanation. He explained his “no” votes on several choices, as well as his “yes” votes (for such a luminary as Matt Williams, for instance), but relegated Rickey to a “And Here Are Some Players Who May Yet Be Elected” list. Later, Simpson explained on the Columbia Journalism Review that:

“No one in the history of baseball has ever gotten into the Hall of Fame on a unanimous vote,” he notes. “I mean, we’re talking about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson—nobody. And if anyone out there thinks that Rickey Henderson can carry one of those guys’ shoes, he’s crazy.”

That’s twenty-five ballots left unaccounted for. I have a feeling most of them fall into the Corky Simpson line of thinking, which is where the problem’s crux lies.

The first Baseball Hall of Fame class was named in 1936—Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson, and Walter Johnson. None were elected unanimously—Cobb came closest, with 98.2 percent of the vote. According to Simpson and, ostensibly, most of the naysayers on Rickey, this is a sign that no player should ever be elected unanimously. After all, if the Baseball Writers of 1936 didn’t believe that Babe Ruth—the greatest player of all time, a name synonymous with “baseball”—wasn’t worthy of unanimous induction, then no one should be given said honor. Therefore, a set of “guardians” will simply leave players off their ballot if they are up for their first year of eligibility. There’s no thought process to it—they just don’t check the box next to said player’s name.

The problem is that this doesn’t jive with history. Baseball-Reference.com (probably the greatest pure website ever invented by man) has statistics going back to—wait for it—1871. Players in this day and age are eligible five years after they’ve retired, and can stay on the ballot a maximum of 15 years—hence, you never have any player who retired more than twenty years ago on the ballot.

Voters in the first election were working off a SIXTY-FIVE YEAR backlog of players. A special veteran’s committee was set up to vote exclusively for pre-1900 players, but the rules were unclear, and several players appeared on both ballots. Twenty-three players appeared on the 2009 ballot. There was no such list of eligible players on the 1936 ballot, but FORTY-SEVEN received at least one vote apiece.

Do you see the issue here? A voter might have felt that the stars of yesteryear were being forgotten, and tilted his ballot away from the obvious stars in order to give the Edd Roushes of the world a better chance. The more options you give people, the better chance they’ll lack unanimity on the obvious choice.

These writers are holding up a standard which doesn’t exist.

So, you might say, why not simply educate them on their mistake? Perhaps a little enlightenment will shock them into some sense.

I have a feeling that’s not what would happen. The writer—as well as the pundit, or the politician, or some combination of the breed—isn’t interested in being right. He’s interested in being weighty. Rickey Henderson is not a Hall of Famer because of his statistics, or his accomplishments, or his sheer brilliance on the field of play.

Rickey Henderson is a Hall of Famer because I say so.

And I don’t say so.

And that’s the problem.

The Off Year

Bessie Braddock: Sir, you are drunk.

Churchill: And you, madam, are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober.

When I was three, I broke my right leg. Not in a cool way either. For reasons which I can't recall, I had a toy garbage truck among my various playthings. I have no earthly conception as to what I did with it--threw out my spare Legos, I suppose. Anyways, while running around in my grandparents' house, I got my right foot stuck in the back of said truck. My foot stayed put, but the rest of my body kept going forward, and I received a very early lesson in torque and the laws of physics when my right leg snapped. Spiral break. Not very good.

I'm relying on secondhand memories here--there's no real trauma resulting from this accident. I got a half-body cast and was doped up on morphine half the time, so I can't give you the true specifics. I had a talking Teddy Ruxpin doll at the time, and the morphine convinced me he was real. There's that.

I guess the only thing you could say was that, from then on in, I walked a little slower, a little more cautiously. My leg was wrapped in a cast, and when it came off, it took from me a sense of abandon. I was constantly prepared for a fall.

Over the past year, I've made a conscious and largely successful effort to improve my mind. I don't mean this in the sense of actually making myself smarter, but I've been trying to do more with what I've got. It's worked! I think it's worked. Friends of mine have commented on how much I've "improved". It's my own mini-redemption story, right? There's nothing America loves more than something that used to be tarnished. My confidence and sense of clarity--the idea that I have some kind of purpose--have never been higher.

It's not enough.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of physicality. We have bodies, and I think this is very strange to us. More than once, while staring into a mirror after washing my face or brushing my teeth, I've been struck by a sense of dissociation. The basic act of moving my hand, or the sensation of heat or cold becomes alien. Athleticism is a way to reconcile this--we can conquer the world around us through speed, strength, and endurance. We can become masters of our surroundings by making them surmountable.

Or, at least, some of us can. For my entire life, I've grown up with the belief there is such a thing as a "born" athlete, someone who effortlessly glides through life's pickup basketball games and backyard football contests due to an inherent advantage. Whether it's great size, fleetfootedness, or merely an advanced coherence of movement, it's not something that I think could ever be taught, or learned. It's merely inherent. You are, or you aren't.

But I know that I can remake my mind--strengthen the connection between concepts, beliefs, and expressions to form a greater whole. Why not my body?

I still believe that some athletes are simply born that way. You can tell by the way they move--I met Rangers' center fielder Josh Hamilton once, and he practically bounced down the hall, moving with a certain economy on the balls of his feet. It's something you have to accept if you want to do what I want to do.

I want to make myself into an athlete.

We've already gone over why the grand path of my life hasn't been leading in this direction. But this path is mutable. Perhaps for the majority of us, our surroundings dictate our future. You could have two kids with an equal amount of natural athletic talent, but one of them has an expansive backyard, a lot of free time, and dozens of other kids in the neighborhood with which to play team sports. The other broke his leg when he was three and spent the rest of his life watching his step. Which one would you pick first for a team?

I think this realization is an advantage. I may be far behind, but all I need to do is commit--to treat the base and the summit as one. I could be in for a fall, it's true, or a disappointment, but defiance at the precipice is a virtue. Can you make yourself something you're not? I plan on finding out now. In the morning, I'll be sober.

The Myth of Nomar

I have been so terribly irritable over the past weeks, and I think it's Al Reyes' fault.

There are other factors at work. While the wide framework of my life is solid, I've been beset by a series of petty failures--the worst kind, to be honest. Ideally, in the event of a life-altering reversal of fortune, you have some kind of support system--friends and family rally around you if you're fired, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Fail at something stupid, though, and you will receive no pity.

The core of it is this: I haven't been able to write for the past month. This happens sometimes, and though the reasons vary, it always comes down to procrastination. I spent hours today avoiding the whole writing process--having to actually translate the clear threads of my imagination into something muddled and lacking.

To that end, I tried (and failed) to do the following things:

• Get the new version of AIM to work on my computer.
  
• Get through even a quarter of Samurai Shodown II (one of those classic fighting games that requires one to have methamphetamine reflexes to even dream of defeating the computer. So far, the pattern seems to be as such: start match, spend twenty seconds having every attack blocked with a dismissive effortlessness by the computer, lose match, consider throwing controller, and, ultimately, sink back into chair with a certain amount of despair and embarrassment.)
• Respond to e-mails sent by loved ones.
• Go to the gym.

God, I suck. The only thing I'm good at, in times like these, is writing. It's the cure-all. But up until fifteen minutes ago, I couldn't do it. It's somewhat liberating to be actually doing this, and someday I may write about the process, as it applies to me.

That, kids, is why the basic idea of Al Reyes has put me in a dark mood.

**********
At twenty-three years of age, Nomar Garciaparra hit .306 with 30 home runs for the Boston Red Sox.

At twenty-four, Nomar hit .323 with 35 home runs.

At twenty-five, Nomar hit .357 with 27 home runs.

I've always liked baseball, but I didn't really love it until Anthony Nomar Garciaparra (his famous middle name, which defined him to the world, became one of those words, which leapt above their original meanings and came to stand for so much more) became the starting shortstop for the Red Sox. Here he was, in the full flower of youth, so audaciously talented that, to a 13-year-old with glasses and acne, he didn't quite seem real. Nomar, along with the hated Derek Jeter and the distant Alex Rodriguez, heralded a new age of shortstoppery in baseball.

Shortstops had been, for a long period of time, smaller and scrappier, defense-first types, broken only by outliers like Cal Ripken Jr. Nomar was a sinewy howitzer, both on the field and at-bat. Two images stand out to me, when thinking of Nomar: his uncanny ability to rove into the hole between second and third base, spear a sharp grounder, then (all in one motion), turning, jumping, and firing the ball to first; and his power-laden swing, which (preceded by a series of ritualistic toe taps and glove adjustments that became iconic) seemed to produce naught but frightening line drives, at every angle. He was otherwordly. There was no effort to his ability.

We will never know his true talent level, because of Al Reyes. Near the end of his age twenty-five season, Reyes hit Nomar in the left wrist with a fastball.

Life is rarely cinematic. There was no hushed silence, no frozen movie frame--Nomar was hit, but he seemed fine., and he had an entire offseason to rest it up. In his age twenty-six season, Nomar hit .372, which to this day doesn't seem like an actual number. He wasn't even in his prime yet.

In his age twenty-seven season, the wrist began to act up. He missed a hundred and forty-two games.

In his age twenty-eight and twenty-nine seasons, he hit a combined .305. He could still mash. But it seemed to us, at the time, that Nomar was struggling, at least a bit. He was always aggressive, but his walks fell, as pitchers felt they could challenge him more often. More and more of those line drives turned into weak popups. He was falling off a mountain in slow motion.

In his age thirty season, Nomar Garciaparra played in only thirty-eight games for Boston, before being traded to the Cubs. The Red Sox won the World Series that year. Al Reyes' fastball had finally found its mark.

I've reached a point in my life where some things I once found essential are falling by the wayside. I can't remember my sixth-grade history teacher's name, or the names of the next-door neighbors at our old house. They're lost in the haze. I wonder if Nomar remembers what it felt like to truly turn on a pitch, the way only an elite hitter can. For the past two years, he's been far below adequate. Once the toast of Boston, a future Hall of Famer, news of Nomar's potential retirement due to "constant physical ailments" is buried deep in an article about something else entirely.

Don't pity him. Nomar is a millionaire several times over, married to a beautiful and talented woman--his life has been better, on balance, than billions and billions of others.

But the man used to be able to do something, and he no longer can. That alone is a kind of death.

From the Archives: Exclusively Regarding Bobby Abreu's Approach to Hitting

Sorry, non-sports fans, we're taking a left turn back into the ballpark for a bit. This is something I wrote that plays off of my enduring fascination with hidden greatness, those people without whom the world would fall apart. In this case, we deal with the curious case of New York Yankees right fielder Bobby Abreu, the greatest player no one can stand.

Bobby Abreu looms over the plate. He is exactly six feet tall but has mastered the cobra's trick of making himself look larger than he is. Abreu holds his hands high and tilts his stocky body forward, giving the impression that he is a frightening power hitter, but this is fiction. Bobby Abreu averages 22 home runs per season, which is respectable but not exceptional. What he has done, in totality, is eschewed exceptional power and turned himself into baseball's version of a meat grinder--a relentless, terrifyingly effective destroyer of pitching.

He's so good at it that nobody wants to watch him. You'll eat hamburgers, but you don't want to watch them get made.

At some point in his life, I imagine Bobby Abreu read Ted Williams' book, titled "The Science of Hitting". His philosophy (Ted Williams is second only to Babe Ruth, who played in an era without integration or the slider, in most important rate categories, so his philosophy on baseball is more "absolutely right" than a true philosophy) was quite simple. Ted Williams wanted young hitter to get a pitch to hit, and when that pitch came, to hit it.

Simple.

Hard to follow, though. Ted's philosophy required an extreme degree of discipline. If a pitch was an inch off the plate, you were not to swing*. If it was an inch too high, you were not to swing. If it was a strike, and your particular collection of skills and swing mechanics would not allow you to put the ball in play for a hit or foul it off safely, you were not to swing. Anything else was giving in to the pitcher's plan to get you out.

*Some players, through a collection of unique skill and confidence, can ignore this rule, but that list is vanishingly small. Vladimir Guerrero of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (this translates to "The Angels Angels of Anaheim, but whatever) swings at more pitches that are not close to the strike zone than anyone else, by a humongous margin--something like three times as often as the next closest guy. But he can get away with it because he has near bizarre strength and hand-eye coordination. I saw him hit an opposite-field line-drive home run on a pitch outside and eyeball-high off of Brad Penny in an All-Star game, and I swear to God I've seen him clock a double off a pitch that bounced in the dirt. Vlad the Impaler. A marvel in a pine tar-stained red helmet. You may never see his like again.

You could not alter the plan under any circumstances. It didn't matter whether that inch-high pitch came in a spring training game or the seventh game of the World Series. You were not to swing. Trust Ted. It would work itself out. You'd come out ahead more often than not. If you swung at the bad pitch, you would make an out. If not, you could get a pitch to hit. Or walk. Either way, you win.

Not swinging is what Bobby Abreu does best. He looms over the plate, looking ten feet tall and coiled like a viper, and he doesn't swing. Bobby Abreu has broken down the batter-pitcher matchup into its component parts. 106 times a year, the umpire calls ball four and Bobby Abreu walks to first. 128 times a year, the umpire calls strike three and Bobby Abreu walks to the dugout. Approximately a third of the time he comes to bat, Bobby Abreu does not put the ball in play.

This infuriated fans in Philadelphia, where he played for eight and a half years. Why, asked the Phillies faithful, would Bobby Abreu refuse to swing (as an aside; he has 1800 or so career hits, so he is clearly capable of doing so)? With a man on second, Bobby Abreu would prefer to walk, to put another man on base without necessarily affecting the score?

Was he selfish? Foolish? Ignorant?

It was certainly a possibility to the fans in Philadelphia. Their franchise is approaching 10,000 losses, the first professional team ever to do so. They could not afford to wait. Bobby Abreu could. So they blame Bobby Abreu, the best player on their team, for their sorrows.

To wit: Bobby Abreu's career batting average is .300. Nothing to write home about. Lots of people have done that.

His career on-base percentage, which is a measure of the number of times he gets on base without making an out, is .407.

On-base percentage is the statistic most closely correlated with scoring runs, which is one of the two ways you win baseball games (the other is preventing runs, which he's also pretty good at, but we are talking about hitting here). This ranks 32nd on the all-time list.

He's ahead of Jackie Robinson. He's ahead of Rickey Henderson. He's ahead of Joe DiMaggio. He's ahead of Mark McGwire. He's ahead of Willie Mays. He's ahead of Arky Vaughn, Hank Greenberg, Honus Wagner, Ralph Kiner, Johnny Mize, Hack Wilson, and Cap Anson (you don't know who these people are, but they're all Hall of Famers).

Furthermore, when he does hit the ball, he hits it hard. His refusal to swing at bad pitches means that a higher percentage of his swings come against good pitches, which are easier to drive on a straight line, hurtling past the infield and coming to rest far away from any outfielder. Bobby Abreu doesn't hit an overwhelming number of home runs, but he smacks 41 doubles a year, bringing his slugging percentage (total bases/at-bats, essentially a measure of overall power) to an even .500. This puts him in the top 100 all-time, ahead of people like Reggie Jackson, George Brett, and Yogi Berra.*

*Admittedly, some of this is due to the fact that he's a corner outfielder, where it's easier for a hard-hitter to thrive. And more of it is due to his era, and his ballpark, and plain dumb luck, and the fact that he hasn't entered a true decline phase. Still, I think it's clear the man is an elite-level hitter.

A team composed entirely of Bobby Abreus would score a thousand runs. They would eat pitchers alive, destroying the coherence of pitching staffs and causing a new outbreak of horrific arm injuries. Heck, they'd even play decent defense and run the bases well.

They would win a hundred and twenty games per year.

But their games would take five hours. They'd almost never swing. Nothing you could do would change them.

This is the curse of Bobby Abreu's approach to hitting. It's like a meat grinder. It gets the job done in the most efficient and effective way possible.

And no one wants to watch.

Scouting Report: Joe DeMartino

Player's personal comments in italics

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 170 lbs. (and dropping!)

Bats: Left

Throws: Right

Sings: Tenor

Eyes: Green

Hair: Brown, awesome

COMPLETE ATHLETIC RECORD

LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL (Ages 7-13)

• Strengths: Good throwing arm, reliable glove, excellent plate discipline
• Weaknesses: No power, no strike zone judgment, slow, afraid of balls thrown more than 60 mph.
• Positions played well: Catcher, second base, third base
• Positions played incompetently: Outfield (all), pitcher

HIGHLIGHTS: Once tagged two people out at home on the same play. Wore out pitchers with ridiculous refusal to swing at close pitches. Dove and caught a ball once in center field. Mashed the occasional double. Still holds record for killing mosquitoes in dugout at Kennedy Field (fifty in one night!)

LOWLIGHTS: Walked four people in a row during disastrous stint as pitcher. Almost threw ball at fat kid who mocked him for walking said people. Fat kid was walking down first base line at the time. Struck out with frequency and flair. Bad eyesight. Struck out on purpose against last pitcher ever faced, due to pitcher's first offering going an inch over his head at eighty miles per hour. Catcher's return throw to the pitcher once hit him in the head while he was in the batter's box. Struck out--looking!--on a full count with the bases loaded and two outs in the final inning of the local championship game*.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Couldn't hit a curveball.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Futility infielder.

*OK, while technically true, the circumstances were bullshit. We were down by five, so even if I hit a grand slam, we still had the autistic kid who hated baseball coming up after me. I read Ted Williams' "The Science of Hitting" (fat lot of good it did me), and its central tenet was that it's pointless to swing at a pitch you can't hit. So I didn't swing at that pitch. Wanna know why? IT WAS AT MY FRIGGING ANKLES! When the ump rang me up, I had to restrain myself from breaking his arm with my bat.

POP WARNER/HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL (ages 10-14)

• Strengths: Ability to understand plays. Advanced sense of self-preservation.
  
• Weaknesses: Average size. Slow. Lacks agility. Afraid of contact. Averse to pain. Glasses.
  
• Positions played well: Left bench
• Positions played incompetently: All

HIGHLIGHTS: Nicknamed "The Professor" by first Pop Warner coaches. Felt awesome sense of inclusion with every team played on. Great sideline motivator. Good snapper. Planned and led successful raid on defensive unit's cabin in freshman year training camp in Vermont. Successfully explained concept of a light-year to star nose tackle. Was the only person to quit freshman year football with honor and to the coach's face. Received no major injuries*.

LOWLIGHTS: Refused to go all-out in drills. Shied away from every tackle. Run over constantly at the line of scrimmage. Cried when formerly undefeated team lost a heartbreaker to North Attleboro. Lost a cleat in the mud of a Martha's Vineyard field. Fractured right pinky finger after catching it in opponent's facemask. Mocked by creepy drunken townie for sitting out with said injury.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Spent week-long training camp in hellish Vermont locale with two-a-day practices, shitty food, and no pillows/sheets/mattresses. Literally slept on wood.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Looks a bit lost out there.

*This one kid I knew, Derek Durkin, was a fleet and nimble running back. Really talented, just loved the game. We had this one drill where two players faced off, about twenty yards apart. The coach held a ball in the air between the players, and they had to run forward and either a) get the ball or b) tackle the guy with the ball. This was the dumbest fucking drill I'd ever been a part of. I always slowed up so I wouldn't get the ball and made a half-hearted dive at my opponent. My coaches were always pissed. One of them headbutted me while I was wearing a helmet. Derek Durkin, maybe eleven or twelve years old at the time, received THREE CONCUSSIONS from this and various other drills. So yeah, no thanks. I like my brain intact.

GOLF (age 14?)

• Strengths: Hit the crap out of the ball
• Weaknesses: Didn't know where the ball was going. Hated golf.
• Positions played well: Not golfer.
  
• Positions played incompetently: Golfer

HIGHLIGHTS: Found out he hated golf*.

LOWLIGHTS: Crazy kid who ended up being a townie nearly decapitated him with a five-iron after some gentle mocking of his swing.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Found out he hated golf.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Hated golf.

*"When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it."--Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby. Hell yeah, Rajah.

FENCING (ages 14-present)

• Strengths: Strong wrists. Totally awesome salute. Looked cool in a white kevlar bodysuit. Awesome hair looked cool when mask was taken off dramatically. Got to keep sweet purple warmup suit from Northwestern.
  
• Weaknesses: Mediocre footwork. Tended to fall in love with parries and neglect offense. Usually faced off against D-I scholarship athletes who had been fencing their entire lives and occasionally were Olympians. Lost to girls*.
• Positions played well: Pain-in-the-ass defensive specialist
  
• Positions played incompetently: Attacker

HIGHLIGHTS: Once just absolutely destroyed this arrogant prick who gave him a "come and get it" hand signal after lunging. At least seven confirmed wins, including three in a row against another club team when the rest of his squad was unable to continue due to injury/fatigue. College coach had sweet Civil War-era mustache.

LOWLIGHTS: Unconfirmed number of losses, possibly in the thousands. Lost 15-0 in Ohio State Duals against some guy who he later found out was captain of "The Excalibur Squad", whatever that is. Tried and failed to cause crippling knee injuries to Ohio State fencers. Never went to supposedly mandatory workouts due to combination of 7 AM start time, two-mile walk, cold weather, and alcohol.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Combination of daily three hour practices, vastly increasing academic workload, and constant ass-kickings.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Looked cool, at least.

*To be absolutely fair, these girls were the cream of the crop. NU is one of those schools which is ranked anywhere between No. 1 and No. 5 in the country at any given point, so these kids had all kinds of family traditions, dating back like a hundred years. Not that you care, you jerks.

TRACK (age 15)

• Strengths: None
• Weaknesses: Slow.
• Positions played well: Sitter.
• Positions played incompetently: Runner

HIGHLIGHTS: Found out he hated track

LOWLIGHTS: Brought a book to the only practice he attended. Read it while coach was talking. Quit after first quarter-mile due to boredom.*

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Slow, hated track.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Hated track.

*Neil Gupta, noted track stalwart, has never let me forget this. I still don't have the foggiest idea why I decided to try running, considering I hate running and have to listen to angry-man music to get through 15 minutes on a treadmill.

OVERALL PLAYER EVALUATION

Strong arm. Good hands. Slow feet. Hates pain. Loves competition. Used to wish he was Ted Williams. Will now settle for Joe Posnanski.

Because "toycannon.blogspot.com" was not available...

Adding a simple "The" solves that problem.

"The Toy Cannon", incidentally, is the nickname of 1960s-70s Houston Astros center fielder Jimmy Wynn. He got it by hitting moon-shot, tape-measure home runs despite being (charitably) 5'6" tall. The name itself has no relation to this blog save for two things.

First, we'll be talking about baseball. Not all the time or anything. But it'll come up.

Second, as nicknames go, that one is absolutely perfect. I mean, boy, is it ever perfect. We've entered a real down-time in terms of nicknames and I worry that it's a permanent thing. Look, the best player in baseball right now is Alex Rodriguez. Fifty years ago, he would have been called something like "Moonshine Al" or "The Impossible Machine". Something evocative, you know? The best we've come up with for him is "A-Rod", which tells you bloody well nothing. If you were looking at Jimmy Wynn up at bat and asked who he was, and I told you "Oh, that's Jimmy Wynn, the Toy Cannon", I suspect you'd have a good idea of what he was like as a player. Not so with Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez.

That's not his fault, incidentally, horrid Yankee though he be. The "X-Rod"* nicknaming convention is insidious. Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez had a great nickname (though stolen a bit from Carlton "Pudge" Fisk), but I've heard people refer to him as "I-Rod". For shame, people.

*This same problem extends to politics. Otto von Bismarck was "The Iron Chancellor", which is kickin' rad. George W. Bush is "Dubya". Christ. It's just his middle initial, mispronounced.

For my money, the top ten best nicknames in all of history are as follows:

1. Edward "The Black Prince"

Just an absolute stunner of a nickname. You have to marvel at how badass a man has to be to be nicknamed "The Black Prince". I can just imagine the conversation back in France:

French Soldier 1: So, I hear the English are coming. We can totally take them. Who's in command?

French Soldier 2: The Black Prince.

French Soldier 1: God damn it.

French Soldier 2: I know!

For what it's worth, Edward was never called "The Black Prince" in his lifetime, so the above conversation never really could have taken place. Still. "The Black Prince". Damn, son.

2. James "Cool Papa" Bell

This nickname is good enough that it's subsumed James Bell's actual name; I know an awful lot about baseball*, and I had to look it up. Cool Papa Bell was a Negro Leagues great, said to be so fast that he could flick a light switch and be in bed before the room went dark. The marvelous part about this legend is that it actually happened once, due to faulty wiring.

*God, I'm so smart.

3. Jimmy "The Toy Cannon" Wynn

Covered previously. Jimmy Wynn played in a cavernous pitcher's park in a low-offense era that killed his chances at the Hall of Fame. One year, he alone accounted for 37 of his team's 93 TOTAL home runs. His wife also stabbed him this one time. So there's that.

4. Walter "Sweetness" Payton

Most football nicknames run the super-macho gamut; Mean Joe Green, Jack "The Assassin" Tatum, Jerome "The Bus" Bettis. Just saying "Sweetness" actually makes me smile a little bit. It's completely non-conformist, rolls off the tongue, and tells you all you need to know about the man's running style.

5. Attila the Hun, "The Scourge of God"

Visigoth Soldier 1: So, I hear the Eng--uh, Huns are coming. We can totally take them. Who's in command?

Visigoth Soldier 2: The Scourge of God

Visigoth Soldier 1: God damn it.

Visigoth Soldier 2: Also, we're about to enter the Dark Ages.

Visigoth Soldier 1: *forgets how to read*

Fun fact: Typing "Scourge of God" into Wikipedia takes you directly to Attila's page. You know you've a great nickname when no one has dared to take it for 1600 years.

6. Illich Ramirez Sanchez, "Carlos the Jackal"

Leftist revolutionaries have a bunch of great nicknames (I'm not a huge fan of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, but you have to admit, that name has sticking power), but Illich Sanchez' is the best. Reduced slightly in power considering the guy is in prison and did not die in a hail of gunfire.

7. Martha "Calamity Jane" Cannary

Another nickname that has completely subsumed the subject's actual name. Whatever your opinion* of Calamity Jane, it will change dramatically once you watch HBO's "Deadwood".

*Unless your opinion of Calamity Jane is that she is a drunken mess of a person whose every other word is a profanity. Then your opinion probably won't change much.

8. Manfred von Richtofen, "The Red Baron"

English Pilot 1: So, I hear the Germans are coming. We can totally take them. Who's in command?

English Pilot 2: *dies of trench foot*

English Pilot 1: God damn it.

9. Erwin Rommel, "The Desert Fox"

Are there foxes in the desert? I think there are, but I'm too lazy to confirm that independently. I doubt they're really all that fierce. Anyways, I hate to give a great nickname award to a Nazi, but "The Desert Fox" is too good to pass up.

Is a movie made better by the inclusion of the Nazis as the main villain? I'm pretty certain that's true, based solely on the Indiana Jones movies. The first and third? Excellent. Lots of Nazi-punching/shooting/dissolving-due-to-the-terror-of-the-Almighty. The second one? Tribesmen. Not so good.

10. Bob "Death to Flying Things" Ferguson

19th-century infielder who apparently was very good at catching spherical white objects before they hit the ground. This nickname is really long and wordy, which is usually the worst thing a nickname can be, but it's just so goofy that it gets the nod. It's one of those things that only drunken men with bowler hats and handlebar mustaches could come up with.

That's a hell of a list.